Cleaning the Basement

Redo again.

The beginning of a new year offers opportunities for a fresh start. It isn’t necessary to start a deep dig in sorting through the pile in the basement. I’ve been here with you before and got as far as having a line of boxes marked by town or subject matter.

My father was principal of Coosa School in Floyd County when it was an allinclusive building of all grades. There are photographs of school busses that wouldn’t pass muster today. They were open to the weather.

Basketball in the early 1930’s was still an outdoor sport, and part of my father’s job was to coach the team. His athletic shoes of that era are still viable and his whistle still blows.

One of his proudest accomplishments was to be founder of Alto Park Elementary School.

Long after dementia robbed him of family and relationship memories, he could identify pictures of Alto Park students.

I come from a line of clippers. Family members clipped recipes, obituaries, wedding announcements, interesting bits that either went into a scrapbook or a large envelope. One of the envelopes is marked “Mama’s recipes.”

I long ago recognized that mothers and daughters have similar handwriting. It doesn’t stand up for fathers and sons, only among the females.

My mother’s script was so much like my grandmother’s that I can’t tell if “Mama” was my grandmother or great-grandmother. There is no telling how many generations that trait flows through.

I’ve done some skimpy research on some of the names in the articles to determine if the subjects are distant relatives or family members of friends.

A few recipes should go to descendants of neighbors I knew, such as a recipe from Alice Ware, whose husband, James, was a skilled mason, and another from Jewel Brown, who lived across the pasture and pond from grandparents.

The students of Berry Schools in early years lived in a closed community, and the students grew as close as kin. Many of the articles related to birth announcements and weddings of school chums.

Sooner or later someone has to help answer the question, “Who’d want all this stuff?”

Somehow it slipped past me to contact the Pope descendants of “ultra deep south Georgia” over the find of a leather bound text book.

The book was owned by Elizabeth Ann Bomar, born in 1834. She married one of the Walker County Pope boys who moved her way south. The Pope family operated that ancient rock store that stood guard over the intersection in Villanow and the south Georgia Popes flourished.

As you see, I have plenty of material to work with, but I can’t just toss an old recipe without trying it first.

joenphillips@yahoo.com